First Letter Home
by Zixi Rae
Summary: BJ's finds it hard to sleep his first night at the 4077th and composes his first of many letters home.


You never sleep well your first night in a new place. With a sigh, BJ turned over again, trying to find a comfortable spot on this army cot still molded to the body of a different man. His first mess tent dinner sat heavily in the bottom of his stomach. He wasn't sure how long he'd been lying there in the Korean night, listening to the unfamiliar sounds – the occasional pace of a sentry, muted conversations from the mess tent or slam of a door could all be heard through thin tent walls. Combined with the random frightful sound of distant artillery blasts, it was too much for him to sleep through. Even the insects sounded different.

It didn't help that part of him didn't want to sleep, because then he'd have to admit he wasn't asleep now. He'd have to admit this wasn't all a dream and he wasn't about to wake up to find himself in Peg's arms, find this whole army business had just been a horrible imagined joke. And he would get up in the morning and kiss Peg and play with Erin and head to the hospital for a routine day of separating people from their appendixes and tonsils. No, he feared if he went to sleep he'd only wake to find what Hawkeye had warned him to expect – khaki green and a pre-dawn barrage of teenagers needing shrapnel removed from their bellies. He was not enjoying the dismal sobriety which had set in after the morning's drinks wore off.

Suppressing a groan of frustration, BJ slowly eased out of his cot and dug through his belongings for a pen and pad of paper. Carefully closing the door, he slipped out of his new quarters, his...swamp. He settled onto some rocks outside and stared into the Korean night, listening to the crickets and watching the flashes in the distant hills. He missed Peg already. Ached more then he thought possible for the embrace of her arms, the sound of her voice, the scent of her hair. And Erin. She'd only been in his life such a short time but he'd give anything for a baby smile or just to hold and rock her. He'd happily change every diaper without complaint, deal with every night feeding and cry if only he could be home with them. He'd waited so long to finally be a father, and now his first child was an ocean away.

The pad of paper was a weight in his lap. For too long, this paper would be his only contact with his girls half a world away. He longed to write Peg and tell her everything, have her tell him it's okay, make it better. But what was the use? Could he really tell her what this place was like? He hadn't even been there a day and already he didn't know how to describe what he'd seen. And what was the point of telling her, of scaring her? She couldn't bring him back, couldn't end the war, she'd just worry more then she probably already was. But he had promised her he'd be honest – tell her everything. Figuring it would probably help him to write it, even if he didn't mail it, he began filling pages with his doctor's scrawl.  
  
_Dear Peg  
I'm starting this letter with the most important words I have to say. I love you.  
I'm in Korea, sitting outside my tent, affectionately known as "The Swamp." To be honest, most swamps I've seen have more charm. I keep debating what to tell you, how to describe all I've seen in my first day here. I know I promised you I'd tell you everything but after my few hours here, I wish I'd never made that promise. This place is so much worse then I ever imagined, and I wish I could protect you from it. But a promise is a promise.  
My years in medical school, the war stories I've heard, even that joke of a training the army gave me, did nothing to prepare me for today. I expected to take a dusty jeep ride to a field hospital, which I expected to look like a smaller, maybe dirtier version of a hospital at home. Instead, I cared for my first wounded before even arriving at this glorified army camp with an operating room trying hard to pretend sterility and a post-op with more wounded then beds. And the people here aren't soldiers. They're simply doing the best they can with the little they have, putting wounded first and thumbing their noses at army discipline and protocol.  
But I suppose like any story, I should start at the beginning. Peg, don't make this a bedtime story, I'd hate to think I gave you nightmares. I arrived in Korea to be met by the company clerk, a corporal Walter O'Reilly. Nicknames seem a common thing around here Peg, and the clerk is no exception. He goes by Radar, named for an uncanny ability to hear and predict things others can't. We met up with the chief surgeon of the outfit, a Dr. Benjamin Franklin Pierce. He goes by Hawkeye, named by his father after a character in Last of the Mohicans. I can't say my first impressions of Hawkeye were terribly good. He'd joined Radar in a desperate attempt to say good-bye to the surgeon I'm replacing, a "Trapper" John McIntyre. He was so distraught at missing him by 10 minutes that he barely noticed me. I wondered what kind of unit I was joining if this rumpled, distracted, ragged man was chief surgeon.  
But Peg, there was also something scary about him. He looked like a man who used to smile and laugh and fully enjoy life. But he greeted me with the look of a man who had lost nearly everything and then watched his best friend slip away. He looked aged before his time and his eyes were almost clouded over with a distant disbelief, refusing to see what was in front of them. He looked like he'd seen too much and turned inward, wouldn't recognize the man he used to be. I'm scared Peg. If this place has done that to him, what will it do to me?  
Hawkeye and Radar quickly discovered their jeep had disappeared and there quickly followed antics I swear could be from a Marx Brothers movie. I felt so out of place standing there in my dress uniform and watching those two in the barest of military dress code interact as though they could read each other's thoughts. I was the stranger they didn't know dressed in a uniform they had abandoned.  
Luckily, Hawkeye soon warmed up and decided to officially welcome me to Korea. Despite first appearances I think I'm going to like Hawkeye. He's got a sharp wit and a good sense of humor. He seems to genuinely care about people, and knows his stuff medically. There's just something under the surface that I can't quite see. Almost like he's hidden away a part of himself under humor and false bravado.  
We soon found a jeep and headed to camp. Hawkeye referred to it as "home." I wonder if I'll ever find myself calling this place "home." Oh Peg, I'm not sure how to tell you what we first ran into. A Korean family was testing land for farming. To see if the land was safe for the ox, the farmer had his daughters testing if for mines. As Hawkeye stopped the jeep to yell at them the worst happened and a mine went off. Radar ran for the injured girl and somehow made it back out alive. We took them to a Korean hospital, if you can call it that. I've never seen such horrible conditions.  
We weren't much further before a tire in the jeep blew. I've changed tires before, but never before had snipers shooting at me while I did it. I've never before been that scared, never before had someone try to kill me. Something tells me this won't be the last time I experience it.  
Miraculously unhurt, we soon ran across a squadron of soldiers. Suddenly Hawkeye was pulling me under an overturned jeep as mortars exploded all around us, filling the air with the acrid smell of smoke. At the cry of "medic" Hawkeye dragged me out to lead me through my first battlefield medicine. I've seen plenty of cadavers. I've worked on accident victims. I thought the sight of blood had stopped bothering me long ago. But Peg, these soldiers were so young. And what mortars can do to a body...I was literally sick. Hawkeye stood by as I lost my breakfast to the Korean soil, and then led me right back into the war, assuring me I'd "get used to all this." I don't think I want to get used to it.  
I think that's when I finally understood what I'd seen in Hawkeye's eyes. He'd gotten used to it. It wasn't that the blood, the carnage, the brutality, the fear didn't get to him. It's that he'd taken that part of himself and hidden it away somewhere it can't be touched. His eyes are clouded over so they don't see what's around him. Once the war's over, I wonder if he'll ever manage to release himself. I wonder if I'll find myself hiding somewhere too.  
I'm afraid I made a poor impression on the commanding officer here, a Major Frank Burns. Right outside camp Hawkeye stopped at Rosie's Bar to get me "started on my ulcer." Remember that time in college when you made me promise never to get that drunk again? I'm afraid I broke that promise. Sorry Peg, but alcohol seems the only way to forget this place, and everyone wants to forget. So we drank, and Hawkeye told me stories about the camp, but only funny ones. And in every pause, every glance to Radar, I saw the stories he wasn't telling me, the ones which were too painful to share with a stranger. By the time I got to camp, I had laughed till I cried and was so drunk I could barely stand.  
Hawkeye and I endured a lecture on patriotism and army discipline from Frank and the head nurse, Major Margaret Houlihan. Hawkeye tells me those two are having a fling they think the camp doesn't know about. They were furious at us for being drunk, but all the fury seemed directed at Hawkeye, as though he'd given me no choice whether to drink. Frank strongly warned me against letting him influence me. More then anything else today that somehow drew me closer to him.  
We sobered up and Hawkeye led me around camp, introducing me to people, more names then I can remember. There is one corporal here, I think named Klinger who's so desperate to be sent home he's taken to wearing dresses in hopes of being declared crazy. I'll say one thing, he has good taste in clothing. The camp is mostly just a jumble of green tents. The operating room, well, it's not like any operating room I've ever seen. Concrete floor, wooden walls, bad lighting, 4 tables in a row. Hawkeye assures me before things are over I'll become way too familiar with that room. I already miss you and Erin so much. But I'm also so scared. I'm only just done with residency. What if I'm not a good enough doctor? What if I'm as bad as Hawkeye complains Frank is? What if Hawkeye can never stop looking at me and see the man I'm replacing? What if I never get used to watching young people die? What if I do? Oh Peg, I keep hoping to wake up and find myself home, with you beside me. I don't know how to be a soldier. I don't know what I'm doing here.  
I love you Peg. Kiss Erin for me, and hang on. I'll be home as soon as I can.  
  
_He'd run out of anything to say. And somehow, the emptiness inside him only felt bigger.  
  
The door behind BJ swung open and Hawkeye stepped out, wrapped in a red bathrobe. He sat down next to the younger doctor and for a while they both stared into the night at the distant artillery flashes.

"You should try to sleep. A light show like that usually means we get wounded with sunrise," Hawkeye told him quietly.   
  
"Bed bugs kicked me out. Claimed it was their territory." BJ's feeble attempt at a joke echoed flatly in the night.   
  
"Couldn't sleep my first night either. Too nervous. Too scared. Too worried. Too homesick," Hawkeye confided quietly, staring blindly at the mountains.   
  
The honesty brought all of BJ's frustrations to the surface. "I miss them so much. What if I die here? What if this place changes me so much they don't recognize me when I go home? Dammit, I don't want to get used to this place. I don't want to be here!" Anger broke through even as BJ felt a sob building in the back of his throat.   
  
There was silence for a while. For a moment, BJ wondered what Hawkeye thought of him. Was he looking at BJ and seeing the person he used to be? Was he disgusted at him for being so weak? Or was he looking at the man who proved a poor replacement for his best friend? Finally, the soft reply came: "No one wants to be here."  
  
And they sat. BJ found himself grateful for the darkness that hid the few tears falling from his eyes.   
  
"C'mon. At least pretend to sleep. You'll probably have to play doctor soon, and that's hard enough when you aren't tired," Hawkeye finally said, his voice sounding ancient. He stood up, and held a hand out to the younger doctor, just as he had earlier that day during the shelling.  
  
For an instant a bit of light caught Hawkeye's face and BJ could swear there were tears built up in the man's eyes. He followed Hawkeye into the swamp and lay back down in the stranger's cot. The occasional sound of artillery still burst through the tent walls.  
  
"Does it ever get easier?"  
  
The older doctor considered. "Easier? No. Different? Yes. You learn to see things differently, or just to not see them. You learn to live with always being terrified, learn to not let things get to you." BJ stared at the tent roof, almost wishing Hawkeye had been willing to lie.  
  
"Hawkeye?"  
  
"Yeah?" came the half-asleep reply.  
  
"Thanks"

"Anytime Trap," muttered the sleeping doctor.

* * *

BJ stumbled into the mess tent, still wearing scrubs and collapsed on a bench. His first OR session had been everything Hawkeye promised and then some. Hawkeye had declared the session "short." He was not looking forward to his first long one. The wounded never seemed to stop coming. And there was so much blood. He'd never seen that much blood at once before. It was leaking from everywhere.   
  
Hawkeye came over, handed him a cup of coffee and sat down next to him. BJ was too tired to even question why the coffee was purple. He reached down, and pulled papers from his pocket – the letter he'd written Peg last night.   
  
There was blood on it.   
Somehow, that seemed fitting.   
  
For a bemused moment he wondered whose it was. The corporal whose leg he'd amputated? The colonel with the head wound? Or perhaps the private who'd died with his heart in BJ's hands?   
  
It didn't matter. He couldn't mail that to Peg now.

On his way from the mess tent he dropped it in the trash. He headed straight for the swamp and collapsed on his cot, closing his eyelids to dream of Peg. Standing in blood had made this place real. There was no point in avoiding sleep now.

He didn't notice Hawkeye behind him, bending over quickly to retrieve the letter. 


End file.
